Shaker Aamer

Remembering the long campaign to free Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo, who was finally released eight years ago, on October 30, 2015, and the We Stand With Shaker campaign, involving photos of MPs and celebrities standing with an inflatable figure of Shaker, which I ran with the activist Joanne MacInnes in the last year of Shaker’s imprisonment.

Promoting a very special event on Sunday 22nd October in Conway Hall in London, ‘Grassroots Protest: Activism from Below’, in which I’ll be discussing the We Stand With Shaker Aamer campaign of 2014-15, and my ongoing work on Guantánamo, and writer, editor and activist Leila Hassan (Race Today) will be discussing her involvement in the anti-racist movement of the ‘70s and ‘80s.

Videos from ‘Guantánamo: 20 Years After’, the online conference, hosted by the University of Brighton, which took place on Nov. 12-13, 2021, and which I helped to organize. I was also a keynote speaker, along with former prisoner Shaker Aamer. Included here are videos of the keynote speeches, a presentation by Jeremy Varon of Witness Against Torture, and the conference’s three panel discussions.

Linking to my recent interview — about the future of Guantánamo under Joe Biden, the proposed extradition of Julian Assange, and more — with Andy Bungay and Colin Crilly for Andy’s show on Riverside Radio, a community radio station in Battersea. Andy also played two songs by my band The Four Fathers.

My report about an application for a judicial review, submitted by the NGO Reprieve and the MPs Dan Jarvis and David Davis, regarding the British government’s refusal to hold a judge-led inquiry into the UK’s post-9/11 complicity in torture, first promised by David Cameron over nine years ago, but not delivered.

Here’s a link to, and discussion of my recent radio interview with Andy Bungay of Wandsworth’s Riverside Radio, in which we discussed Guantánamo, and the housing crisis in London, and Andy played songs by my band The Four Fathers, about Shaker Aamer and Grenfell.

Please support my work as a reader-funded investigative journalist, commentator and activist.   Last Saturday, I was on community radio station Wandsworth Radio for two hours, taking part in a freewheeling, wide-ranging political discussion with host Andy Bungay and regular monthly co-host Colin Crilly.  The show is here, and below I’ve broken it down into […]

Please support my work as a reader-funded journalist! I’m currently trying to raise $2500 (£2000) to support my writing and campaigning on Guantánamo and related issues over the next three months of the Trump administration.   Please join us in urging Donald Trump to close Guantánamo. Take a photo with a 6,000 days poster, either […]

Please support my work as a reader-funded journalist! I’m currently trying to raise $2500 (£2000) to support my writing and campaigning on Guantánamo and related issues over the next three months of the Trump administration.   Dear friends, supporters, and any stray passers-by, My most recent article, WORLD EXCLUSIVE: Ex-Guantánamo Prisoner Salem Gherebi’s Letter Explaining […]

Please support my work! I’m currently trying to raise $2500 (£2000) to support my writing and campaigning on Guantánamo and related issues over the first two months of the Trump administration.   Last week, I was delighted to speak to Chris Cook of Gorilla Radio, based in British Columbia, about life in Donald Trump’s America, […]